Jamie Lee Curtis plans Hollywood exit before industry pushes her out

Jamie Lee Curtis plans to leave Hollywood on her own terms.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Jamie Lee, 67, discussed how she feels about aging in Hollywood and what her plans are for her career moving forward. 

“I witnessed my parents lose the very thing that gave them their fame and their life and their livelihood, when the industry rejected them at a certain age,” she explained. “I watched them reach incredible success and then have it slowly erode to where it was gone. And that’s very painful.”

Having watched her parents struggle in the industry as they got older, she has taken a proactive approach, telling the outlet, “I have been self-retiring for 30 years.” She explains she has “been prepping to get out” of the industry in order to not “have to suffer the same as my family did.”

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“I want to leave the party before I’m no longer invited,” she added. 

Jamie Lee made her big-screen debut in 1978 when she starred as Laurie in “Halloween.” After evading Michael Myers, the actress went on to star in successful films, including “Trading Places” and “A Fish Called Wanda,” before eventually winning an Oscar in 2023 for her role as Deirdre Beaubeirdre in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

“I witnessed my parents lose the very thing that gave them their fame and their life and their livelihood, when the industry rejected them at a certain age.”

— Jamie Lee Curtis

The Academy Award-winning actress is the daughter of Hollywood icons, Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis.

Throughout his career in Hollywood, Tony appeared in over 150 films, including 1957’s “Sweet Smell of Success” and the 1959 comedy “Some Like It Hot” alongside Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon. Leigh began her film career in 1947, and starred in classics including “Touch of Evil” and “The Manchurian Candidate.”

Both Leigh and Tony received Academy Award nominations: Tony for his role in “The Defiant Ones,” and Leigh for her supporting role as Marion Crane in “Psycho,” the role for which she is most well-known.

The couple got married in 1951 and welcomed two daughters; Jamie Lee and Kelly. They later divorced in 1962, with Tony going on to get married five more times, and Leigh going on to marry stockbroker Robert Brandt, whom she was with until her death in 2004.

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Leigh died in October 2004 due to complications associated with vasculitis, and Tony died in September 2010 from cardiac arrest. They were 77 and 85 years old, respectively, when they passed.

Jamie Lee weighed in on the harsh criticism surrounding nepo babies in a December 2022 Instagram post, in which she called herself “an OG Nepo Baby.”

“I’ve never understood, nor will I, what qualities got me hired that day, but since my first two lines on ‘Quincy’ as a contract player at Universal Studios to this last spectacular creative year some 44 years later, there’s not a day in my professional life that goes by without my being reminded that I am the daughter of movie stars,” she captioned the post.

Within the lengthy caption she challenged the idea that just because someone is “related to someone else who is famous in their field for their art, would somehow have no talent whatsoever.”

“I’ve tried to bring integrity and professionalism and love and community and art to my work,” she wrote. “I am not alone. There are many of us. Dedicated to our craft. Proud of our lineage. Strong in our belief in our right to exist.”